IB ministry overrules jury, drops 2 films from IFFI

The information and broadcasting ministry has overruled the decision of the IFFI jury and pulled out Malayalam movie S Durga and Marathi film Nude from the 48th edition of the film festival in Goa later this month, the movies' directors say.

S Durga director Sanal Kumar Sasidharan and Nude director Ravi Jadhav said they are shocked and disappointed by the decision to drop the films from the Panorama section.

A jury member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, termed the ministry's decision unprecedented.The ministry did not respond to the reports.

"The jury's recommendations are final and cannot be changed without consulting them. But the ministry has gone ahead and dropped the two films on its own," he said.

Nude, he added, is so good that the 13-member Panorama jury, headed by Sujoy Ghosh, recommended it as the opening film for 48th International Film Festival of India in Goa from November 20-28.

He described "Nude as a strong feminist film and S Durga, a movie with a strong message about women's safety. The Malayalam film was orginally called Sexy Durga and had won awards in international film festivals.

According to him, the jury's recommendation is usually made public almost immediately after it hands the list to the minister's office.

The jury submitted its list to the ministry on September 20-21 but the line-up was made public only recently and without the name of the two films, he disclosed.

A disheartened Sasidharan claimed that the list was delayed on purpose.

He said he is in shock and has not received any letter from the ministry about why his film did not make the cut.

The film, a road movie that follows the horrifying experience of two hitchhikers, a man and a woman, at the hands of two men in the dead of the night, won the Hivos Tiger Award in the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017.

Sasidharan told PTI that he's planning to approach the court after this "clever move" by the ministry.

Jadhav, whose film depicts the struggle of a woman secretly working as a nude model in Mumbai, is equally disappointed.

He said he has written a letter to the ministry to know what exactly happened and why his film was rejected.